but his writing is unusual because, you know, if you take a book like "thoughts on machiavelli," which is one of his most famous books but also most difficult, it's very clear after reading five or ten pages of it that it's certainly not a conventional work of interpreting an author in the history of ideas. and, you know, there are some scholars who have simply written off the book because it seems completely removed from contemporary canons of scholarship in the history of ideas. now, what is strauss really doing in these works which seem neither to be straightforward husband to haveically inform -- historically informed of the thought of the past nor, on the other hand works where he straightforwardly presents his own normative positions on different political and philosophical questions. and so what i believe he's doing, and i explain this in my book is that he's doing a new kind of philosophizing. what he's trying to do is to set up or construct intertemporal dialogues, dialogues between thinkers of different periods where, for example, aristotle gets the opportunity to reply to or

he has given stalin eight copy of machiavelli in stalin's from the sky.o he's not exactly naÏve but he refuses to engage in a conspiracy to remove stalin and doesn't feel personally threatened and doesn't think the revolution is under threat by stalin but in fact quite the opposite. what he tells one of stalin's close associates is that stalin is working hard at doing a really big job. so i said to myself this episode is not definitive in the summer of 1923. it doesn't forever decide the question but it's a very interesting episode. evidently stalin's closest comrade did not perceive the sociopathic behavior that we will see later as of summer 1923. so whatever beatings his father gave him, and there are very few sources that corroborate any of these beatings and in fact i have my doubts that his father thrashed him frequently but nonetheless let's suppose he did did. certainly this is a man who is now in its 45th year in a position of tremendous power and his rivals -- in fact the others that are in a cave on vacation don't actually try to remove stalin.

and the machiavellians is simply a series of essays on earlier political scientist starting with machiavelli, but others. this is sort of the realistic school of political analysis and it's the only one that really holds up over time. so i just make the sort of two comments about the books. >> i think the struggle for the world holds up in i remember reading as a student, the first chapter is what we should do. it's very short chapter that says we should let the russians win. we should abandon all attempts. we should ask what with the great philosophers have recommended? they would have recommended submission it is better to accept evil then perpetrate one and we would be ruled and tell eventually sovereign in some way. very serious people did in fact recommend such a policy. a hungarian in the 1940s when he sees what's happening since the best thing we can do it since we hope that will be ruled in a more friendly way and eventually they'll lose. then he ends the chapter by saying we are not granted to that of course. so then what do we have to do. it's a really gripping opening because it t

he's taken advantage of that as he weaves through the machiavelli and system that requires compromise>> dan, thank you so much. for more on the italian president nicole itano's -- napolitano's decision to step down, we welcome a professor. he was not without controversy, but he was considered one of the most important presidents for italy. he took on more of a rolled in the ceremonial president usually has. do we need someone to get more involved in politics like he did? >> in the first place, i would like to state that in fact the italian president according to the constitution is the strongest of the weak heads of state. the week heads of state are the monarchies and the parliamentary republics which italy is one. napolitano is certainly stronger , for example, than the german federal president. he can also sort of influence, and even lobby, in various ways. this is the first thing to know. the largely ceremonial role is appropriate, but there is also some minimal executive power to be considered. the next president should be, in the first place, a person of great prestige and a per